Someone to Talk to
by PartoftheGaang
Summary: Ever since Phantom Planet, Danny hasn't felt right. Everyone told him he should be happy because it was his idea saved the world. He was considered a hero, but Danny didn't feel like one. With his parents always working and Jazz off at college, Danny felt more alone than ever. Until he met Kara. She became his someone to talk to.
1. Chapter 1

**Authors Note: I have to say, I am quite confused with . When I copied and pasted my story there's all these sentences crossed out and suggestions next to them. Because of that, I apologize for any mistakes, AO3 doesn't doesn't do that. Anyway, welcome! Thank you for clicking on my story. I will say that this chapter is quite long, it's a bit over 6,000 words.**

 **Also, 's policy is quite different than AO3's when it comes to explicit material. This chapter has some mild nudity. Kitty is topless and on top of Johnny and she confronts Danny while in that state. If that makes you uncomfortable then you can skip over it. There also is some rude language (they are teenagers after all) and in this story both Danny and my OC are depressed. There is talk about wanting to die and other thoughts that often come along with depression. That is a warning that should be heeded throughout the entire story is also posted on AO3. My username over there is SokkasGirl. Thanks for reading and enjoy! :)**

The one thing Kara never got tired of was hearing all the stories about how the halfa saves people. The kid had heart, and Kara admired him greatly for that. He did his best with each situation that was thrown at him and never gave up when things got tough. It was all the more reason that Kara wanted to actually talk to him.

The only fear Kara had was that Danny Phantom might send her back to the Ghost Zone without giving her a chance to explain herself. Kara knew that Danny would have no reason to trust her. His experience with ghosts thus far showed Danny that the ghosts that come out of the Ghost Zone were out to get someone or to get revenge. Or even just to reign terror on Amity Park, just for the hell of it.

But Kara knew that if she didn't present herself to Danny Phantom, she would regret it for the rest of her ghostly life. And there were already so many things that she regretted not doing. Kara figured that the worst that could happen is that she would be sent back to the Ghost Zone. Sure the rejection would sting, but hey, at least she will have tried. With that thought in her head, Kara fazed through the ship carrying Danny and his friends as they navigated their way out of the Ghost Zone.

"Danny," The goth girl was saying, "Are you sure you're doing alright?" Kara knew it was in bad taste to be eavesdropping on their conversation, but what else was she supposed to do? They were flying endlessly through the Ghost Zone and since she was hitching a ride from them back to the other side of the portal, there was nothing else to do but listen to their conversation.

"Yeah, Sam. I'm fine. Stop asking, okay? It's getting really annoying," Danny replied. He sure sounded annoyed. His response had a barely controlled bite to it. Just from that answer alone Kara, not even knowing Danny, knew that he was very much not fine.

"Are you sure, man?" The other friend asked. "After everything that went down, ya know, saving the world and all, you haven't been the same. You've especially been very tense lately."

Danny, who had been doing his best to ignore his friends, snapped his head in their direction. His eyes glowed with an anger that Kara knew came from bottling feelings. Sadness and hurt and insecurities bottled up can turn into anger. And that kind of anger is always the most painful, Kara knew from experience. a tired kind of anger, something Kara knew all too well.

"I'm fine!" Danny shouted. "I am sick of the two of you always checking up on me! Everything's great. There's nothing to be worried about. Let. It. Go." Danny bit out before sitting on a crate, turning around and hunching his shoulders around him like they could protect him from his friends' questioning.

His friends, Sam and the glasses guy, gave each other worried looks but ultimately decided to drop it, like Danny wanted. Kara almost wanted them to keep pushing Danny.

Looking at Danny, Kara remembered the fear she felt when she found out the world was going to end and the sense of relief she felt when she saw the dashingly heroic face of Danny Phantom announcing his plan to save the world. She remembered how confident she felt as she watched him soar through the sky with an armada of ghosts flying behind him. She had no doubt in her mind that Danny Phantom could save them. She'll never forget that feeling.

Danny Phantom was a hero and Kara thought that thinking about such a feat should make Danny happy. He shouldn't be angry about saving two worlds.

Curious about what could be going on in Danny Phantom's head, Kara crept closer. She was intangibly invisible, making sure she didn't touch the floor, ceiling, or walls of the ship so she didn't get hurdled back into the Ghost Zone.

The minute Kara's face was an inch away from Danny's, a blue sliver of air came out of his mouth. He sat up straight, muscles tensed. He quickly turned to look at his friends. When seeing that they had not noticed anything strange, Danny turned his attention back to where Kara was. Danny didn't get up from his spot or alert his friends to the potential threat of danger. Instead, he squinted his eyes and looked closely at every nook and cranny he could place his eyes on.

Kara knew that Danny knew she was there. Kara also knew that Danny didn't know exactly who it was that was on his ship, but oddly enough he just continued to sit looking utterly dejected.

Soon enough, they had made it safely to the other side of the ghost portal. It hadn't been too long since Kara had been on this side of things, though she had been a completely different person then.

Phazing through the ship, Kara took in her surroundings. The weapons and machinery all looked state of the art. The lab itself looked pretty high tech but it was cold and Kara felt the strangest feeling of emptiness lingering in the air, though that could just be the emotions radiating off of Danny.

"Danny," The nerdy friend with glasses started saying, "Look, man, you know we care about you." Kara flew closer to where Danny was leaning against the ship, back in human form. The kid with glasses was standing in front of him keeping his distance, and Sam was standing by the open door of the ship keeping her head down listening to the conversation.

"I know we keep bugging you about how you're doing, but we care about your wellbeing. Everything's been going great for all of us. We saved the world, I'm the freaking mayor of Amity Park. Sam has started all these programs around different schools about animal awareness. We're living our dreams. Dude, you're even going to space camp over the summer. You get to go to Florida. To- to freaking NASA! For free! And you've just been bummed since you found out, and we don't understand why." Kara frowned.

"Danny," Sam's voice was so quiet that Kara almost didn't hear her. "We just want you to be alright. I know things kind of happened between us and then they stopped and if that's why-"

"No," Danny said, squeezing his eyes shut.

"No?" Sam questioned.

"I'm not upset because we broke up," Danny said not noticing the hurt look in Sam's eyes at his words. He turned so that he could look at both his friends. "I'm not upset at all," Danny explained looking so sincere that it had to be fake. "I'm just tired, okay? I need a break from everything. Which-" Danny cut himself off before he could finish his thought.

"Which what, Danny?" Glasses asked.

"Which includes you guys. I need a break from you guys," Danny finished softly.

"Us?" Sam asked, obviously hurt.

"Why?" Glasses questioned Danny.

With a deep breath and a sigh, Danny explained that the only time he saw his friends anymore is when they need him to deal with ghostly politics. With glasses being mayor and Danny and Sam both working for him, they were all crazy busy. All their time was split between different things. He only saw them for work, which was the only reason he was even seeing them right now. It was to map out new doors that had popped up in the Ghost Zone. They never hung out like they used to, and it had gotten to the point that he didn't look forward to seeing them anymore.

"We're sorry we make you feel that way Danny, but we're only trying to help," Sam said. "We have a duty to the town, to the world! We couldn't just stop once everything was safe again." Danny simply turned his head away from her with a sad look in his eye. With a sigh, Sam called the other guy, Tucker, as his name turned out to be, to leave. Kara watched as Sam and Tucker slowly made their way to the stairs. Danny watched on with a remorseful look in his eyes.

Quietly, Danny sent out another apology to his friends. "I promise, when I feel better you guys will be the first two people I call."

With an off-handed "That's nice, Danny," from Tucker and a "See ya," from Sam, Kara watched Danny's two friends leave the laboratory. Once the two were out of sight, Kara watched helplessly as Danny leaned back against the ship and slide down it. He hid his face in his hands and his shoulders started shaking. Kara quietly moved forward to sit cross legged in front of Danny. As soon as she got close to him, that same breath of blue air escaped through his hands.

"I know you're there whoever you are. You can come out now," Danny said, his voice muffled byfrom his hands. With Danny's face still hidden, Kara made herself visible.

Cocking her head to the side, Kara openly observed the boy sitting in front of her. He looked exhausted and absolutely miserable. He didn't look anything how Kara thought the savior of the world should be.

"Are you okay?" Kara asked softly. Danny snapped his eyes open and Kara was met with a teary-eyed glare.

"I'm fine," Danny snapped. "Why do you care? I don't know you. What are you even doing here? If you wanna go make a mess of things, go right ahead." Catching his breath, Danny said, "I won't stop you."

Kara stared at him, unsure how to answer.

 _Cause you've always interested me_ _. You're cute_ _. You're sad. I'm sad. I want your help._

"Because we're the same," Was all Kara could get outwhat Kara came up with.

"How so?" Danny questioned, waving his hands around manically. "How would you know that? I've never seen you before in my life."

Kara scooted herself closer to Danny to where their knees were almost touching. She looked at her hands contemplating her answer.

"Everyone in the Ghost Zone knows who you are," Kara whispered. "Everyone knows what you did to save both worlds even if they weren't there to actually help, like me."

"You didn't help?" Kara couldn't help but feel like Danny was judging her for apparently not helping, so she figured she should explain herself.

"No." Barely being able to look Danny in the eye she said, "I didn't die till after it happened."

Danny looked startled. It was in the moment that Kara saw Danny look her over. She knew what he saw. Some teenager who obviously died pretty recently. It was obvious, Kara knew, due to her clothing choice. She looked like a Lindsay Lohan wannabe and she knew Danny would be able to tell when she came from.

"I remember watching everything on the news though. What you did was amazingwesome,." Kara gushed, reachinghed out to place and placed a hand on Danny's knee. She and offered him a sincere thank you. Danny only nodded looked down in response.

Deciding to continue, Kara asked, "You know Lindsay Lohan?" Danny nodded looking confused at the question. "Well as you can see, I think she's pretty kick-ass. I tried to impress these girls at school. Dressing like this, growing out and dying my hair. I wanted to be like them, and they liked Lindsay Lohan and I thought she was awesome, so I followed her as a sort of fashion icon. The girls went crazy over my ideas of how to transform myself. It'll be "totally fetch", they said. Totally fetch, my ass," Kara scoffed. SheKara shook her head. "Stupid _Mean Girls_ ," She mumbled.

"I tried so hard for them to like me," Kara said. She felt the familiar burning behind her eyes and tried to hold back the onslaught of tears. She didn't like thinking about how she died. Not only did it totally blow that she was dead, but she also was extremely embarrassed about it. "They invited me to this party after you saved the world. It was some big thing, obviously. Everyone was relieved, and people were throwing parties everywhere. I had never been to one before so when they invited me to go with them to one, I did." Kara let out a short chuckle that she knew conveyed the fact that she didn't find her story amusing.

"I had never drank before or done drugs or anything bad really. I've always been such a rule follower and these girls weren't. I was tired of being me, so I tried to be like them and since the world had just been saved, I figured it was the perfect excuse to really reinvent myself into the person they wanted me to be- that I thought I wanted to be."

"At the party, they convinced me to do a keg stand. I did that and took shot after shot and played way too many rounds of beer pong," Kara sighed. "Especially for someone who had never drank before. I was hammered. "I vaguely remember going to the bathroom, I didn't feel good. I could hardly see anything. I remember locking the door and trying to make it the toilet. Then everything went black. When I woke up, I was in the Ghost Zone. I didn't know what was going on."

"Then what?" Danny asked.

Kara shrugged. "This guy, Johnny, showed me the ropes. He said I was lucky to have my memories. He told me stories about you and your adventures. Things that I wouldn't have known about when I was alive. He and his girlfriend told me everything I needed to know. Long story short, I was fascinated by your story. I already knew who you were, but the more I heard about you, the more I wanted to find you. I was hoping maybe you could help me figure out how to become a halfa," Kara confessed.

Danny gave Kara a funny look. "I can't help you figure out how to _be_ a halfa," Danny said slowly. "That's not how it works."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I didn't ask to be this way. It wasn't like one day I just decided that I wanted to become half human- half ghost. It happened in an accident- an accident that nearly killed me," Danny explained. "Then I willingly gave my powers away because I was sick of them and then I had to get blasted by a ton of ghosts to get my powers back, and that was an accident too."

Kara was confused. She thought there were three halfas, that were known anyway. And that included Danny. She thought he could help her have a life in the human world. She wanted to become human again and if there were three halfas out there, shouldn't she be able to become one too? She voiced her thoughts to Danny.

"There _are_ three of us," Danny confirmed. "Well, maybe…that we know of anyway. For me and Plasmius, I'm sure you remember him, we got our abilities the same way. It was the same accident but at different times and different circumstances. As far as we know, it's the only way to become a halfa. And honestly, no one knows where he is anymore after the whole incident with him trying to become ruler of earth. He disappeared after that. For all we know, he could be dead," Danny rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing. "As for the other halfa, it's a long story, but she's sorta my clone."

That made Kara pause in her thinking. Not only were there ghosts, but clones were a thing too? Then another thought crossed her mind and her brain couldn't keep up with her mouth to tell her it was insensitive to ask. Before she could stop herself she asked, "How could she be your clone if she's a she?" Kara quickly slapped her hands over her mouth shocked she had asked him that as she quickly realized the only possible answer.

Kara jumped to try and correct herself. "Not that I-I mean- that is to say…It's okay if you were born a girl-," Noticing Danny's shocked smile- small and subtle, but a smile nonetheless- Kara stopped talking.

"Thanks for the unneeded support, but I wasn't born a girl. It was just some freak genetic code mix-up thing. She wasn't a perfect clone, obviously. When Danni, that is, Danni with an "I", was created, it was messy and sort of an accident and things didn't go as planned- not that they were my plans anyway," Danny mumbled.

"But seriously I'm okay with it if-" Kara tried to reassure Danny, but he cut her off.

"And I'm serious. I was telling the truth. I wasn't born a girl. I was born with a penis and a penis is what I still got." Kara closed her mouth quickly out of embarrassment and quickly loweredshielded her eyes away from Danny. "But thank you though," Danny tried to reassure Kara. Kara just nodded in response.

Trying to focus on h getting through her embarrassment, Kara focused on what Danny had told her. If Kara couldn't just become a halfa then what was she going to do? She died too young and there were still so many things that she wanted to do. She hadn't even had her first kiss yet.

"So now what?" Kara asked. "I'm just supposed to go back to the Ghost Zone?"

"I don't know what you want me to say. I get that you wanted to become a halfa and you probably were banking on the fact that it was possible but it's not. Especially since your body is…" Danny didn't know how to finish the sentence.

"Since my body is dead," Kara finished for him.

"That's not exactly what I was going to say, but yeah basically. There's no host body that you could return to. Plus, if everyone thinks that your dead, it would majorly freak them out if you just started walking around again. And that's only if your body is still intact. Maybe you were cremated or maybe your body's been eaten by buzzards. Either way, it's too late."

And, as if it were a second thought, Danny threw in how if she started possessing people in order to live in the human world, itthat would just cause the Ghost Force, the police force that handles the ghosts, to lock her up in a special prison. Ghosts were tolerated now, Danny explained to her, but there were still rules they had to follow.

And anyway, Kara knew Danny was right. It probably wasn't a good idea to try and possess her old body and she wasn't about to go and possess someone else's.

Then a random and absolutely terrifying thought crossed her mind. She didn't know what year it was. Danny looked older, she realized. She knew he had been 14 at the time of disthe asteroid. It had been all over the news that a half ghost 14 year old boy had come up with the plan on how to save the world. But the Danny sitting in front of her looked to be her age, and she was almost 18 when she died. Fearing the answer, Kara asked him what year it was.

Confused, Danny told her it was 2007. And Kara suddenly startedtarted sobbing. She had been dead for three years and she didn't even know it. Her family had probably long since forgotten about her and her death was probably being used as some story in a school assembly about drinking safety or not giving into peer pressure or some bullshit like that. How could it already have been three years? She just found out about being a ghost what she thought was a couple weeks ago. Did time work differently in the Ghost Zone?

Danny didn't try to comfort her. And she didn't try to get him to. She closed her eyes and let herself cry. Eventually she calmed down enough to gather her thoughts.

"I wish I was really dead," Kara told Danny with angry tears in her eyes.

Startled, after a few moments of Kara's silence, Danny let out a, "What?"

Angrily she snapped back, "I wish I was really dead. Being a ghost isn't being dead. I'm still here. I'm still fucking here."

"Sometimes I wish I was really dead too," Danny said quietly after another long moment of silence. Taken aback, it was Kara's turn to let out a surprised, "What?"

"Sometimes I wish that I had actually died in that accident. Instead, it's basically like the ghost me is possessing my corpse or something. It's pretty messed up if you think about it. I mean, I don't know if that's how it really works but when I _really_ thing about it, that's the only explanation I can think of," Danny confessed. "It's really messed up. I mean, I'm half dead…or completely dead and possessing my corpse." Danny shook his head as if trying to clear his thoughts. "It's pretty fucked upfucks with my head."

"What year did the accident happen?" Kara wondered.

"2004." Kara let out a choked laugh.

"It's kind of ironic," Kara said, with a slight smile and some tears still gleaming in her eyes.

"What is?"

"Both our accidents happened the same year. Imagine if we both had actually died. Or if we had even just ended up in the Ghost Zone after our accidents at the same time. Ya know, w without any complications of whatever the hell caused me to not be a ghost for three years and if you didn't become a halfa. We could have ended up in the Ghost Zone together." They both sat there pondering that.

"Huh," Danny said, lost in thought.

"My thoughts exactly," Kara gave Danny a small smile and was pleased to receive one in return.

"Anyway," Kara said standing up from her spot on the floor, rubbing the tears from her eyes. "I should probably head back to the Ghost Zone. If I'm gonna be a ghost forever I guess I better start figuring out my way around." Danny took her lead and stood up as well.

"It was nice talking to you…" Danny said, trailing off.

Taking the hint, Kara filled in the blank space with her name.

"Kara," Danny repeated, testing out her name. "It was nice to meet you, Kara." Giving her another smile, Danny went over to a control panel type thing and placed his thumb over some sort of scanner. Once it scanned his finger, the ghost portal opened. The green light washed over the two of them filling the gloomy lab with some sort of creepy life.

Kara walked over to the entrance of the portal. Before stepping through, she turned back to look at Danny. "If you ever need anyone to talk to, come and find me. You need to talk to someone. It's not healthy to keep things bottled up." Offering Danny one last smile, Kara stepped forward into the green portal, with no other choice than to accept her fate as a ghost.

Once Kara was gone, Danny closed the portal and grabbed a seat in the nearest chair. Danny's mind was reeling over the fact that Kara was right. They both had technically died around the same time. The only difference was that Kara somehow got stuck waiting three years before ending up in the Ghost Zone and Danny somehow maintained control over his body. With a sigh, trying not to think about what could have been, Danny stood up and made his way upstairs.

After "Phantom Planet", as people called the asteroid incident, Fenton Works had become fairly quiet. Now that they knew his secret, Danny's parent basically left him alone. And because they helped to save the world too, people no longer knew Jack and Maddie Fenton as bumbling Ghost Hunter wannabes. They were now part of the Ghost Force, to make sure ghost activity was managed. Did they still bumble around? Sure, especially his dad. But they were respected, and they were hardly ever home anymore.

At first it had been nice. He didn't have to hide anymore or lie to his parents. In fact, they were on his side. They were literally on the same team to keep ghosts at bay. And there were definitely some other perks to having had saved the world like people giving you free stuff and respecting you everywhere you went. Plus, he got the house to himself most of the time since his parents built another laboratory in the Ghost Force section of the precinct. That also meant Danny had full reign of the lab at home. But unfortunately, the upsides of saving the world ended up becoming most of the downsides to it too. It was a double-edged sword Danny would always have to live with, and he hated that.

It was even worse now that Jazz had been out of the house and at college for two years. Danny was happy that she was able to pursue a degree in Psychiatry. It's something that she's always been passionate about- and she's not half bad at it either. And being Danny Phantom's older sister definitely got her in good standing with her university, and Danny knew that Jazz had plenty of jobs lined up for her once she got her degree not just because of her relation to Danny but because she damn well deserved it.

But Danny missed having his sister around. After she found out about his powers, she never expected more from him that what he'd always given. Jazz always treated him like the annoying little brother that she knew and loved. It was something Danny would be eternally grateful for. It gave him some sense of normality in his crazy world and without Jazz, that last sense of normality after everything that happened, was gone.

Finally having made it to his room, Danny trudged through the door and threw himself face down on his bed. Danny buried his head in his pillow thankful that he was able to stay in his house.

There had been a lot of pressure early on that he should move into some sort of mansion or something because of his hero status. After all, why shouldn't the savior of the world live in a big fancy house? People would always be reminded when they passed by just how important he was. He could have been waited on hand and foot and continued with his schooling in private. But Danny didn't want that. He made that perfectly clear. He just wanted to go on with his life as normally as he could.

Unfortunately, hardly anything ever went as Danny wanted it to.

Looking at his alarm clock, the clock's red numbers told Danny that it was only 9:00 PM. It wasn't even that late and he was already tired. Groaning, Danny flipped over onto his back. He really wished Jazz were here, she'd know how to fix whatever was going on with him. Closing his eyes, Danny tried to get some sleep.

"Johnny? How come I've been dead for three years and I've only just discovered I'm a ghost?"

Kara was sitting with Johnny on some cliff near his house. She figured since Johnny and Kitty were the two people- or ghosts- who told her everything she knew, then maybe they'd be able to help her out. Kitty, unfortunately, decided that it was girl's night with Ember so that left Kara to deal with Johnny's unfiltered mouth alone.

"I don't know, doll face. There could be a ton of reasons. I mean you said you died three years ago but that doesn't mean that you haven't been here this whole time," Johnny replied.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kara asked, thoroughly annoyed with Johnny's nonchalance attitude towards the whole thing.

"Dude, I dunno. Like, maybe you were some blob of a ghost wandering around the Ghost Zone. Maybe you only just got your memories back somehow. I don't know," Johnny sighed. "I don't pay attention too much to other people other than Kitty. And to be honest, I don't care too much about your inner turmoil. Just accept that you're a ghost with memories and move on with your life," Johnny shrugged. "I don't know what you want me to say."

Eventually Johnny had not so subtly hinted that Kara should leave. So Kara went to the place that Kitty had set up for her. Despite the Ghost Zone's initial creepiness and distorted looking reality, there were rules and regulations like how Kara was used to back home.

Kitty had taken Kara to this weird door, not too far from the Fenton Portal. It almost reminded Kara of the inside of Monica's apartment door from _Friends._ Once they were through the door, Kara was surprised to see what looked like the lobby of an apartment building. Kitty explained to her that the Ghost Zoneapartment "complex" operated similarly to how it did in thethe human world. The only difference was that Kara would have to pay rent using items she found in the human world that were of value to the landlord. The landlord gave her a list of things that could be used to pay rent. Some of those items being as easy to fingetd such as a bag of gummy bears. There were also some items on the list that Kara would have more difficulty finding or as difficult to get such as a platinum gold watch. The amount of time her rent would cover depended on the value of the item. The higher value the item, the longer she wouldn't have to worry about paying rent.

Kara knew that the system for paying rent was going to get on her nerves quickly, so sheKara had made it a goal of hersbecome invigorated to track down Danny Phantom and not be a part of the ghost world. She had wanted to become half human so she could have a somewhat normal life, like Danny had. and to become a halfa like Danny Phantom. That way, she could just live in the human world like he did. Unfortunately, that wasn't possible so she was being forced with just havingjust going to have to deal.

Stepping into her apartment, Kara was still shocked at how much it looked like apartments back in the human world. Kara supposed that it was because many of the ghosts had once been human, and she wondered when the shock of it all would wear off. Once she settled in for the day, Kara picked up a book that Kitty had left for her. It was a Harry Potter book, classic. But as much as Kara wanted to get sucked into the comforting world of witches and wizards, Kara couldn't help but feel a small amounbout of distain for the book.

She had loved the series so far, having only read up to _The Order of the Phoenix_ , and had longed so desperately to be a part of it. She wanted to fight evil and help Harry save the world. She wanted to go to Hogwarts and explore the castle, get into trouble, and befriend some ghosts.

She was instead living some sort of nightmare, however, living through her own nightmare. Instead of befriending a ghost, she became one. And she wasn't the cool kind of ghost either like the ones Harry Potter or even like Danny Phantom. She was just some teenage ghost who wasn't special, the same kind of not special she was when she was alive alive. And suddenly the thought of reading Harry Potter didn't comfort her as it once did.

With a sigh, Kara got up to look out her window. It was green with doors and ghosts floating around. It wasn't the beautiful blue skies she was used to filled with sunshine and sea breeze. There were no puffy clouds to find silly shapes in as she wasted time waiting for the sun to set. and for some reason Tthat thought weighed heavily on her heart.

Filled with sadness, Kara lied down on the couch and closed her eyes.

It wasn't till about a week after Danny met Kara that he actually decided to take her up on her offer. He had been holed up in his room the whole week and Danny decided that maybe Kara was right- he needed to talk to someone. At first Danny had considered talking to his parents, but they were too busy with the Ghost Force. Then he thought about calling Sam and Tucker. But that meant that Danny would have to spend time with them, and despite his anger over how they hardly spent time with him anymore outside of work, seeing them together hurt. Danny was suspicious that they were secretly together and they didn't need him anymore. Granted, Danny didn't have any proof they were together, but a part of him was just waiting for them to tell him they were. And, even if they weren't, after Danny and Sam broke up, Tucker and Sam had grown so much closer anyway and that made Danny sad. So that meant Danny couldn't- or more accurately, wouldn't- call them.

The one other person in his life that Danny knew would be willing to talk to him was Jazz. But she was so happy at college. Anytime Danny talked to her, she would talk his ear off over what she had learned in class that day, or the day before that, or the day before that. Danny had once sat on the phone with Jazz for three hours as she told him a play by play about what she learned in class the entire week prior. She would have kept going if Danny hadn't reminded her that she was a couple hours behind him and he needed to get tto bed.

It pained Danny to know that she would drop everything to go as far as coming back home just because Danny was feeling depressed. And he didn't want to be the reason that Jazz missed out on her education, especially since she really loved what she was learning. She had done so much for Danny the past couple of years that he just couldn't bring himself to call her.

It was that moment that Danny decided he would march into the Ghost Zone and hunt down Kara. She offered to be the someone Danny could talk to and Danny would be damned if he wasn't going to take her up on that offer. If he didn't talk to someone soon, well, he was afraid that he would do something to make his ghost half the only part of him. And even though he had told Kara that he wish he had died, a part of him knew that that wasn't really true and he clung to that.

Once Danny was inside the Ghost Zone, he went straight to Johnny 13's house. Kara had said something about Johnny and Kitty helping her out and Danny figured it was probably the best place to start his search.

As soon as he got there, he wasted no time in throwing the door open and barging in. He was desperate to find Kara and if she was here, he needed to know. Danny flew all around the first floor of the house almost deciding to give up when it looked like there was nobody home. That is, until he heard a bang like something hitting a wall coming from upstairs. It sounded like it came from right above him. Danny wasted no time in going through the ceiling to whatever room that was and boy did Danny immediately wish he hadn't done that.

Danny had not been expecting to find Johnny and Kitty barely clothed and making out on a bed. Kitty was straddling Johnny and she wasn't wearing a top. And if that wasn't enough to make Danny uncomfortable in more ways than one, her hands were awkwardly working to undo Johnny's pants. They were unaware that Danny was there, he hadn't made a noise since he entered the house.

Needing to know where Kara was and not wanting to just sit around tight in his pants waiting for them to finish, Danny panicked and made himself seen yelling out at them to stop.

Instead of being startled and embarrassed like Danny was sure he'd be in their situation, they both looked over to him panting and annoyed. "What are you doing here ghost child? You're totally ruining our bone time," Johnny complained angrily.

 _Bone time?_ _That's one way to call it,_ Danny thought. _What a stupid way to call having sex._

"Unless, you wanted to join us, Danny," Kitty said smirking. She climbed off of Johnny and crowded up against Danny. Pressing herself up against him, Kitty ran a finger down his cheek. Danny tried to become one with the wall and tried not to focus on how her breasts felt pressed against his chest. He wasn't gonna lie, Kitty was pretty attractive and he was to frazzled but the situation to think too much of anything else..

"No, babe," Johnny called out, saving Danny from embarrassing himself. "I know you have a crush on the kid, but there's no way in hell I'd actually sleep with him."

Kitty turned around planting one hand on her hip and looked at Johnny straight in the eye.

"Then you can leave and I'll have the halfa all to myself. It'll be fun to break him in." Turning back to look at Danny she said, "You're a virgin, aren't you Danny?" Moving himself quickly towards the door, Danny held out his hands in front of him to keep her from coming close to him and tried to gather his thoughts.

"Look," Danny said, taking a breath. "I just want to find Kara. She said she knew you guys," Danny explained.

With matching smirks, Kitty and Johnny stared Danny down, as if they knew something he didn'tdown Danny. He was starting to get uncomfortable again, but not in the erection pressing painfully in the pants kind of way. It was more like, they're about to say something that's gonna make me want to die of embarrassment, kind of way.

"If you want to bone Kara I doubt she'd be up for it, dude," Johnny said. "She's a goody-goody. She won't be down."

"I don't want to bone Kara," Danny yelled, flustered. Taking a breath to calm himself, Danny said, "I just want to talk to her and I thought you guys would know where she was."

"Well that's a relief," A familiar voice said from behind Danny. He turned around quickly to see Kara's head fazed through the wall. "I don't wanna bone you either, as you so eloquently put it," Kara said as she fazed herself completely into the room.

"Kara?" Danny asked, surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Kara pointed out as she crossed her arms.

"Look," Kitty said, turning Kara and Danny's attention over to her. "Since neither of you are down to "bone", can you two get out of here? We were sort of in the middle of something," Kitty sad gesturing to Johnny, who was still lounging in bed, pants partially undone.

Kara blushed as she looked at the pair in their state of disarray. "I'm sorry. I just came over to see if you wanted to hang out then I heard yelling so I came to see what was going on. I didn't mean to interrupt anything," She explained hardly taking a breath.

"Look noob, it's fine," Johnny said. "Just take your boyfriend and get out of here."

Kara lamely pointed out that Danny was not her boyfriend but nodded anyway and walked out the door. Danny followed her lead.

"And Danny," Kitty called to him just before he stepped through the doorframe. "Just know that I'm always available for you if you wanted to blow off some steam. I know how hormonal you teenagers can get and I'm up for helping you out," Kitty winked before climbing back on top of Johnny and kissing him hard on the mouth. Danny quickly walked through the door wide-eyed and nearly crashed into Kara.

"So," Danny said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck.

"You wanted to talk?" Kara asked. Danny nodded with a lame "yeah" thrown in as confirmation.

"Can we go back to the human world?" Kara asked. "There's some things I need to get." Danny told her "sure" and they were off flying through the house and into the Ghost Zone with Danny leading the way.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: This chapter has mentions of heavy drinking.**

"Why are you buying so many bags of gummy bears?" Danny asked. They were in a convenient store by the movie theater.

"Cause the landlord wants them. They count as paying rent because apparently he doesn't do regular currency," Kara replied bitterly.

"Do you even have any money?" Danny asked as they made their way to the counter to pay. Laying down her 20 packs of gummy bears, Kara patted her pockets then gave Danny a sheepish look.

"Uh, apparently not," Danny said.

Sighing, Danny pulled out his wallet and made to give the cashier the money. Finally pulling their attention away from the Gameboy in their hand, the cashier noticed exactly who it was standing at the counter.

"Oh my god!" They exclaimed, and Kara saw Danny wince. "You're Danny Fenton!" Danny hesitantly waved at the enthusiastic teenager behind the counter.

"Uh, yeah. Hi," Danny said. The cashier smiled so wide that Kara thought her mouth would split and she was sure that if her face turned any redder, she'd pass out.

"Oh my god!" She squealed. "I can't believe you're in this shop. Oh my god this is the coolest thing ever." Danny just gave her a weary look and tried to hand her the money to pay for the candy.

"Oh, no! I can't let you pay. During my training, they stressed that if you ever came in here, anything you wanted was free," She said looking at the gummy bear packets thrown out on the counter. The cashier faltered. "Even if it is…what, twenty bags of gummy bears?" Danny just shrugged. "Well, it's no big." The girl grabbed a plastic bag from behind the counter and started putting the gummy bears in the bag. When she was finished, she held out the bag to Danny.

"Uh, thanks," Danny said, taking the bag from her.

"No problem. Thanks for stopping in! And I totally think it's cool that you're walking around with a real live ghost. Ghost Rights are totally in right now. Power to the ghosts!" She said pumping, her fist in the air. Kara bristled at the "real live ghost comment". And Ghost Rights? Really? Kara had really missed a lot in the past three years.

"It's all part of the job," Danny mumbled as he gave a weak wave to the overly enthusiastic girl and headed out the door.

"What was up with that?" Kara asked as soon as they were out of the store, bewildered by the whole experience. "Does that happen often?"

Danny sighed. "Unfortunately, yes. That's why I hardly go out unless it's for school."

"And people at school don't treat you like that?" Kara questioned.

With another sigh, Danny told her that the people at school were the people he had grown up with. For the most part, people his own age left him alone. Sometimes he'd get some of the underclassmen coming up to him and asking him for pictures or autographs but most people of his class step in and tell them to butt off.

"Even the people who I thought hated me, like Dash and Paulina- they've stepped in multiple times to keep the younger kids from harassing me. Now the younger kids mostly leave me alone," Danny explained.

"And who are Dash and Paulina?" Kara asked as Danny lead the way back to his house.

"Dash used to bully me and Paulina was my crush who only talked to me cause she had a crush on Phantom. She knew if I was around her, Phantom usually showed up. It was the only reason she even payed attention to me."

Kara gave Danny a sideways look. If she had a crush on Danny and he had a crush on her, why weren't they going out now after everything?

Seeing her look, Danny then explained that after the whole Phantom Planet thing, he had started dating Sam. Paulina, after realizing who Phantom was, while still fascinated by him, mostly stayed out of his way. It was the same thing with Dash. They had an unspoken understanding. Danny knew they wouldn't pick on him any more and they would watch his back because he had saved the both of them on multiple occasions. And for a while, Danny loved it.

"You don't love it anymore?" Kara asked as they approached Danny's house. She was extremely curious about everything that went on his head. She wanted to know everything about him. Kara had never talked to anyone else who had been suffering with depression. Hearing about his situation not only helped understand Danny better but it also made her feel a little less alone in the world.

Danny stopped walking as they reached the front door. "I wish I did. But I'm just sick of it now. I can't wait for graduation," Danny said as he turned his back on her and walked through the door.

"Is it true what Tucker said," Kara asked as she followed him into the house. "About space camp? Are you really going to Florida?"

"Yup," Danny said as he walked up the stairs, still clutching the bag of gummy bears in his right hand. "I sure am." He didn't sound too enthusiastic about it.

Without even glancing at Kara, Danny walked into a room that Kara assumed was his. Kara stopped outside the door. She had never been inside a boy's room before.

"Are you coming in?" Danny called out. Bucking up, Kara walked into the room. His room was simple. There was a bed, a desk, a dresser. Some posters about space plastered on the wall. Just very simple and somewhat neat.

"Uh, nice room," Kara said, unsure of what else to say, feeling mildly uncomfortable. Danny tossed the bag he was holding off to the side then flopped back onto the bed.

"Thanks," Danny replied. "You can have a seat you know." Danny made himself comfortable as Kara hesitantly grabbed the desk chair and rolled it to where it was next to the bed.

"So, what did you wanna talk about?" Kara asked, remembering the whole reason she was even with Danny anyway.

Danny opened his eyes and his body tensed a little. "It was just something dumb. Forget about it," Danny said lightly. He sat up a bit in his bed, leaning against the headrest.

"It's obviously not dumb," Kara insisted. "You went in the Ghost Zone looking for me. I'm sorry about Kitty and Johnny by the way," Kara apologized on behalf of her only friends. "They usually put a sock or something on the door. I kept going around to their place and catching them in compromising positions. They got sick of it," Kara explained with a small laugh.

"It's fine," Danny waved it off.

"No, it's not. Kitty shouldn't have gotten all up in your business like that. It was totally uncool," Kara said.

Sighing, Danny pushed himself up, so he could sit cross-legged on the bed. "It's whatever. She's always had this crush on me. I didn't mind it, really. I was just caught off guard. I'm usually better at dealing with those situations believe me- it's happened before."

"That doesn't matter. It was wrong of her to do that," Kara pushed.

During her time at that party, before she had even taken a single sip of alcohol, she had been cornered by these athletes. They kept saying things that made her uncomfortable and touching her hair and shoulders. She had felt trapped and unsure of what to do and it wasn't till some football guy had gotten their attention that they left her alone. If that's how Danny felt, trapped and uncomfortable, when Kitty cornered him, then it was very much not okay.

"Just drop it okay. It's fine," Danny insisted. Sighing, he spread back out on the bed.

"You keep doing that," Kara calmly observed.

"Doing what?" Danny asked, exasperated.

"Sighing and snapping and saying you're fine when you're obviously not."

"Says you, miss 'I wish I had actually died,'" Danny snapped. He turned around with his back towards her and curled up in a fetal position.

Now it was Kara's turn to sigh. Danny had gone into the Ghost Zone specifically because he wanted to talk to her. Now that they could actually talk, he's pushing her away.

Slowly getting up from the chair, Kara gently sat on the edge of Danny's bed and placed a hand on his arm. He flinched but didn't pull his arm away.

"I've been struggling with depression too, ya know," Kara said softly.

Danny snorted. "I am not depressed."

"I think you are," Kara countered. "It's something that I know from experience. Low self-esteem and years of battling depression ended with me dying. I don't want you to die."

Shrugging her hand off his arm, Danny said, "I thought you wanted to actually die too. We were on the same page," Danny said, sounding frustrated. Placing her hands in her lap, Kara stared at the boy in front of her.

Taking a deep breath, Kara explained that depression was a tricky thing. One minute you're doing fine. Everything going well and you haven't felt sad in a few days. Things seem to be looking up and you're happy to be out of your funk. But then something happens. It could be as big as someone dying to something as small as your mom forgetting to buy you turkey for your school lunches. You never know what might make you depressed and sometimes you might feel that how your feeling is warranted and other times, like with "turkey situations," you feel stupid that something like that upset you. But you can't help it. It just happens.

"Trust me, Danny, it's better to talk about how you're feeling. Even if it's hard to put into words I think it's worth it to try," Kara told him gently.

When Danny just curled up into a tighter ball, Kara sighed.

"Fine, if you're not going to talk, then you're going to listen," Kara declared. She knew that even if Danny didn't respond to her, that he was listening. She wasn't about to give up on him just because he was pretending to ignore her, plus she knew she would also feel better to get what happened to her off her chest.

"The time that I was hanging out with that group of girls was a low point in my life. It was the last term of the semester. The only reason they sat with me was cause they were late on the first day and my table was empty. I was perfectly happy to only acknowledge them when the teacher forced us to work with our tables," Kara explained.

"It wasn't for about a month after Spring Break that the girls actually talked to me because they genuinely wanted to. I was wearing pink. And it was Wednesday. I didn't even mean to make a _Mean Girls_ reference, but I did," She noticed that Danny had turned his head slightly towards her. It was subtle, but she knew he was listening. And that made Kara smile.

She took a deep breath before continuing. "The movie had just come out and they were completely obsessed. I had seen it. I love Lindsay Lohan so of course I saw the movie and it was great. But these three girls, they would quote it non-stop. They made it a goal of theirs to wear pink every Wednesday. So, when I wore pink on that Wednesday, not even thinking about it, they invited me to hang out with them after school," Kara shook her head wishing that had never happened.

"I didn't even like them that much, but I had never really been invited out before and, like I said, I had been feeling depressed. My therapist had been telling me to get out more. Once I go out, he said, it'll take my mind off of what I'm feeling and I'll feel better. And he was right."

"Going out with them, even if they talked my ear off, was nice because it got me out of the house. Eventually I thought that my depression was going away until I realized that once the excitement of actually getting out of the house wore off, I still felt disconnected from the girls I was with. I wasn't actually friends with them. I just tagged along when I needed a pick me up. And I started to spiral again."

"When that happened, I figured, why not become a person that we all admire? That'd get them to like me more and I'll get to change myself. The girls were behind me 100% because they thought it was cool that I wanted to emulate Lindsay Lohan. They helped me copy her clothes from movies and figure out her makeup. I knew I was only doing it, so they would keep liking me and allow me to live in the illusion that I actually had friends. It made me feel good to be wanted, even if it was all superficial."

"Then the disasteroid was gonna hit. The girls figured, we're all gonna die so might as well live it up. During that week, classes were cancelled, work was cancelled. Everything stopped. People threw end of the world parties and the girls had invited me to a couple of them. I always said no."

"I was nervous to say yes because they kept insinuating that I should sleep with someone. After all, who'd wanna die a virgin, right? But I was so desperate to get them to like me that I was scared about what they could convince me to do. I avoided them that whole week."

"Once you saved us, the girls tried again and called me inviting me to the party that I died at. I figured, hey, I missed my chance to live it up like it was the end of the world, so I might as well live it up since we just got saved. I wasn't ready to have sex, but since we survived the impossible, I told the girls that I would drink. They were ecstatic, especially since I had never drank before, but I had only planned on maybe having one cup of beer… but peer pressure, ya know?"

"I wanted them to like me and to keep being my friend after I ignored them the whole week even though I didn't even like them. It was stupid. At the party I drank whenever they told me to. If they told me to take a shot, I did. When they wanted to play multiple rounds of beer pong, I played. Even when I started not feeling well, they encouraged me to keep drinking…and I did. And look where it got me," Kara said.

She wiped some tears from her cheek. She hadn't even realized that she had started crying.

"I don't want you to end up dead, Danny. You have so much ahead of you," Kara sniffled. "I know you feel alone and that no one gets what you're going through, but the truth is that no one ever will unless you tell them. I thought you invited me here to talk about it but if you don't wanna talk then I should go. It's obvious you don't want me here," Kara said, ignoring the little voice in her head that told her that Danny obviously did want her there. He may have shut her out, but he wasn't telling her to leave.

Stupid depression, Kara thought. It always fucking ruined everything.

Kara made a move to stand up but was stopped by a hand holding her wrist. She looked over at Danny who was still facing away from her despite his tight grip.

"Please stay," Danny said, his voice barely above a whisper. His voice sounded like he had been crying. And maybe he had been. Maybe it was cause of Kara's story or maybe it was cause he realized that she did understand in some capacity what he was feeling. Either way, the small voice in Kara's head was right. He wanted her there.

Danny let go of her wrist and scooted a little closer to the edge of the bed. He reached behind him and patted the spot next to him. Kara slowly moved to sit next to him properly, moving her legs onto the bed. She rested her head against the headboard and closed her eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

Danny woke up to the sound of someone knocking at his door. Groaning, he pushed himself up into a sitting position and tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes.

"Danny, honey? Are you awake?" Came his mom's voice from the other side of the door. Confused that she was actually home, Danny looked at his alarm clock. The numbers told him that it was 10:32 P.M. Danny frowned. He had been sleeping for most of the day.

"Yeah, mom," Danny called out. "I'm awake."

"Oh good," She replied as she opened his door and stepped into his room. "I just wanted some advice on how to deal with the Box Ghost. He's not really a threat, but he's starting to get on people's last nerve," his mom explained.

With his mind still clouded with sleep, Danny shook his head and tried to put coherent sentences together. He tried to explain to his mom that ignoring him should get him to stop. The Box Ghost just wanted attention so if he was ignored, then eventually he'd just give up and go away for a while. And if that didn't work, it'd be pretty easy to catch him with the Fenton Thermos.

When he looked back at his mom, he realized that her attention was elsewhere. Turning to see what she was looking at, he noticed that Kara was still there, fast asleep. It was a jarring sight cause he hadn't really thought too much about if other ghosts needed sleep too. Obviously he did because he was half human but he had never thought about if full ghosts needed sleep too.

"Danny?" His mother asked softly.

"Yeah, mom?" Danny winced at how guilty he sounded. He had no reason to sound guilty yet he felt like he had been caught doing something he shouldn't have.

"Why is there a girl in your bed? More specifically, why is there a ghost girl in your bed?" His mom whispered harshly.

Danny tried to come up with an explanation. He wanted to tell the truth. After all, the truth wasn't bad. He had invited her over to talk and eventually they fell asleep. It wasn't a lie, he would just be omitting what they talked about, or what Kara talked about, rather.

Unfortunately, a sleep muddled brain and a disapproving look from his mother made Danny's brain not work properly. The only things he could get out of his mouth were a bunch of "ums" and "uhs" with a quick "it's not what it looks like" and the classic "we didn't do anything".

His mom didn't look even slightly amused. Sighing, Danny got up and led his mother out of his room softly shutting the door being him.

"Danny, who is that and why is she in your bed?" His mother asked in a demanding tone that he didn't really associate with her.

"She's just a friend from the Ghost Zone." Running his hands down his face Danny grumbled out that they had just been talking and there was nothing to worry about. "We fell asleep mom, it's not a big deal."

His mom just crossed her arms disapprovingly and gave him a glare.

"And why does it matter if she's a ghost or not? Is that what you're angry about? That she's a ghost?" Danny asked, suddenly angry and a little offended. "So if she was human it would be okay that she was asleep in my bed but because she's a ghost it's not okay? News flash, mom, I'm a ghost too!"

His mom seemed to deflate at his words. When she reached out to place a comforting hand on Danny, he moved out of the way. He glared at her, hurt and angry and she looked at him with such a heartbroken face that he almost wanted to apologize. Almost.

"What with all the hullabaloo?" Danny and his mom both jumped and turned around, startled by the sudden interruption. His dad was bounding towards them with a face that conveyed concern and a mild curiosity.

From the corner of his eye, Danny saw his mom look at him. She sighed. "Nothing, dear," She said with such a big fake smile that Danny thought it actually physically hurt her to do it. Danny's dad looked at them suspiciously.

"Are you sure? Because I thought I heard some yelling." He insisted.

Danny's mom just waved him off. "Oh, it was nothing, dear. Just a little misunderstanding," She said with a hopeful look in her eye that her husband might actually believe her. Luckily, Danny's dad was not the brightest person in the world.

He gave them one more look then his face split with a grin. "Well, okay then," He said as he clapped Danny on the back, nearly knocking him over. Turning his attention completely to his wife, he asked if she had asked Danny about the Box Ghost.

"I did, dear, don't worry about it. I'll explain everything to you later."

"Well, okay! C'mon, honey buns, let's get back to work on that prison," Danny's dad said excitedly as he turned around and ran towards the stairs.

"Prison?" Danny asked his mom, shocked. Nobody had told him anything about a prison. "What prison?"

"Nothing to concern yourself with, sweetie. It's just a prison to lock up the more dangerous ghosts. It's all under control." She gave him a quick smile and followed her husband without another look.

When Danny went back into his room, he was both surprised and somewhat sad to see that Kara was no longer there. Ridding himself of those thoughts, Danny quickly stripped himself of his shirt and jeans and slipped back into bed. It was barely passed 10:30 and he had school in the morning. But Danny doubted he'd get anymore sleep.

The next morning didn't go that great for Danny. He was tired and cranky and he couldn't stop thinking about what his parents had said about them building a ghost prison. He also couldn't get his mind to shut up about the story Kara had told him. If Kara could open up to him, why couldn't he do the same with her? Kara had been right, Danny had gone into the Ghost Zone specifically to find her because he wanted to talk. But when the opportunity presented itself, he couldn't bring himself to do it. And that made Danny feel terrible.

A hand gently touching his shoulder startled him out of his thoughts. He looked up to see who it was and his heart dropped when he saw the hesitant smile of Sam. Shoving his books in his locker, he tried to ignore her.

"Uh, hey Danny," Sam said. Hesitantly she asked him how he's been. He had skipped school the whole week before, feeling too depressed to leave his room for more than using the bathroom and going downstairs to get small snacks when he became too hungry to ignore. It didn't surprise him that she decided to confront him about it.

"Fine," Danny shortly replied. "Not that you care," He said as he found his science text book and his Spanish notebook and shoved them into his backpack. He slammed his locker shut and started walking to his next class.

"How can you say that? Of course I care about how you're doing," Sam said, quickly matching his pace as he tried to outwalk her. "You didn't show up at all last week. And you weren't answering my calls, or Tucker's. We're worried about you."

"I just wasn't feeling up to coming to this hell hole, okay? I needed time off." Sam grabbed his arm and forced him to turn around and face her.

"You can't just not show up to school when you don't want to Danny. That's not how it works," Sam angrily informed Danny.

"I thought I could do whatever I wanted. I did save the world after all," Danny said hotly. He was tired and annoyed and overly done with everyone and everything. He didn't have time for Sam trying to nag him.

Pointing a finger in his face, Sam said, "Don't let that get to your head, Danny. That's not a good excuse." By this point people were starting to notice that they were arguing.

"Isn't it?" Danny asked, nearly hysteric. "Everyone always tells me that everything's free or that I can do no wrong because I saved us from extinction. And now, the one time that I actually take advantage of that, you're yelling at me for it? How is that fair?" Danny yelled.

Sam huffed and crossed her arms. "Get over yourself. You can't just skip school when you feel like it. You have to get your education," Sam firmly stated. "You can't become an astronaut on the basis that you saved the world. You need proper education. And you can't get that if you don't come to school!"

They were both breathing hard at this point both angry at one another. Danny wanted nothing more than to go home and go back to bed, but he had forced himself to go to school because of the fact that he bailed all last week. Now, he was seriously questioning his life choices.

Taking a deep breath, Danny forced himself to calm down. They were getting nowhere screaming at each other in the middle of a crowded school hallway. People had already stopped and were circled around them waiting to get some juicy gossip on the once hottest couple of Casper High.

"I don't want to talk about this right now," Danny said as calmly as he could. "I also don't want to finish this conversation later. I told you and Tuck that I would reach out when I'm ready. And I'm not ready. Please leave me alone and don't follow me." Danny turned around and the crowd that had circled around them parted as he walked by. He couldn't wait for the day to be over.

Once school had finished, word had gotten around that Danny was fighting with Sam and Tucker. Any news where Danny was concerned resulted in rumors and fake stories plastered across tabloids, not only in Amity Park but across the world.

It wasn't too long after Danny had gotten home and sat down at the kitchen table to do homework that his phone rang. He looked at the caller I.D. Given the day's events, it would have been shocking if Jazz didn't call him.

So there he was talking to Jazz instead of doing his homework. "Danny are you sure you're okay?" Jazz asked for the millionth time since they had started talking.. Danny hated the tone of her voice. He knew that she was just trying to be sympathetic to his situation, but he couldn't help but feel that she was only talking to him because it was the sisterly thing to do. A mere obligation. And deep down Danny knew that wasn't true but it was hard for him to not think that.

"Yeah, Jazz," Danny replied with an aggravated sigh. "It was just a small misunderstanding with Sam at school. People are blowing it way out of proportion," Danny tried to convince his sister.

"Are you sure? You know if you need to talk, I'm here for you," She sounded so sincere, it made Danny's chest hurt. He knew she was there for him. He really did.

Running a hand down his face, he told her that he knew that but insisted all the same that everything was fine.

"Are you sure you're not fighting with them?" Jazz tried again.

"I'm sure, Jazz. We're not fighting," Danny sort of lied. "I just need some time away from dealing with all these politics and that just meant taking a break from seeing them for a while. I promise everything's fine."

Danny and Jazz sat there for a couple minutes in silence while Jazz thought over what Danny had told her. Danny almost dreaded what she was going to say when she started talking again.

"Danny," Jazz said softly. Uh oh, this can't be good. "Do you need me to come home for a while? Because I can if you need me-"

"No!" Danny cut her off. "You don't need to come home. I have everything under control." Danny said hurriedly. This was exactly what he didn't want. He knew Jazz would suggest something like this if she found out even a hint of what he was going through or feeling right now. He wasn't going to let her drop everything just for him. "Honestly, Jazz. I'm all good," Danny needed to think fast. "I actually had just gotten off the phone with Sam right before you called and we worked everything out. I'm meeting up with her and Tucker tonight at Tuck's house. We're gonna set some things straight and talk things through. Everything's fine," Danny tried to make it sound as truthful as he could. There was no talk with Sam and there were no plans to meet up with Sam and Tucker later. But he desperately needed Jazz to believe that there were.

Danny held his breath as he waited for Jazz to say something. "Okay…if you're sure," Jazz said slowly and Danny let out the breath.

"Oh, I'm sure! Don't worry, sis, everything's fine!"

Jazz let out what sounded like a relieved breath. "I'm kind of happy you say that. I was actually going to be starting an internship next week and I would have had to bail on it to come home. It wouldn't have looked good if I had done that." Jazz let out a small laugh and Danny's brief good mood from successfully fooling his sister was gone. She was gonna step out of an internship just for him. He didn't deserve to have a sister like Jazz. No one did.

Danny tried to not let his sudden sadness creep into his voice. "Oh, that's great Jazz," Danny said with too much enthusiasm. "Yeah, I'm glad you didn't have to come home either. That would have been terrible if you had to skip your internship just to come home and watch over little ol' me," Danny laughed, non too convincingly.

"Oh, Danny. I didn't mean it like-"

"No, I know!" Danny insisted. "Anyway, Jazz, it was nice talking to you, but I gotta jet. I have to get things ready for tonight. Gotta run down to the video store and pick up a couple movies and some popcorn and stuff. Congrats on your internship. Gotta go. Love you, bye," Danny all but said in one breath. Closing his phone with a loud snap, Danny let out a big breath and hid his head in his hands. Why did he have to be such a terrible brother? He stood up sharply and the chair made a terrible screeching sound behind him. Clutching his phone angrily in his fist, Danny marched upstairs, his homework completely forgotten.

How could he do that to Jazz? She just wanted to help. She always just wants to help. And Danny had to go and lie to her. He could have told her everything he was feeling and somehow manage to convince her to stay where she was. He didn't have to lie to her. God, why did he do that? Why was he such a terrible person?

Danny didn't even think twice before phasing through the wall of his room. He threw his phone angrily onto his bed and kicked the thing nearest to him. He was startled at the crinkling noise and the lightness of the object. It was almost like his foot passed through it. Looking down to see what he had kicked, he was surprised to see it was the bag of gummy bears that he and Kara had gotten yesterday. Did she leave them there on purpose? Suddenly invigorated by the prospect of seeing Kara again, Danny picked up the bag and flew down to the lab.

Danny realized once he got in the Ghost Zone that he still didn't know exactly where Kara lived. Luckily, Danny didn't have to go very far to find Kitty. She was talking with Ember at some sort of playground. Nobody was on it except for Ember and Kitty sitting on the swings. Ember noticed him first.

"Well if isn't the savior of our world," Ember bit out as a form of sarcastic greeting. "Don't you ever get tired of saving us? Because I do." Danny frowned. Kitty rolled her eyes at her friend and looked at Danny with a reassuring smile.

"Just ignore her," Kitty said. "It's what i do." Kitty just smirked at the glare Ember gave her.

"Uh, right. Anyway, do you guys know where Kara lives? She left some stuff at my house that I wanna return," Danny said, holding up the bag of gummy bears.

"Aw, does the baby have a girlfriend? How cute."

"They're not dating, Ember," Kitty jumped in. "Isn't that right, Danny?" Kitty asked, getting up from the swing suddenly standing nose to nose with him.

"Uh, right," Danny choked out. Kitty laughed, stepping back a bit.

"Relax, kid, I'm just messing with you. Kara gave me this whole talk about respecting you and stuff. She said I act very inappropriately when I'm around you and that it probably makes you uncomfortable. She asked me to stop. C'mon," Kitty said. "I'll take you to Kara's." Waving quickly to Ember, she shot off in the direction of Kara's place and Danny scrambled to follow.

Before he knew it, Danny was standing outside of Kara's door. To his surprise, her apartment wasn't actually that far from the Fenton Portal. Danny was kind of relieved to know that. Soon enough, Kitty pat his shoulder as means of goodbye and left without another word. It was another two minutes before Danny got up the nerve to knock. Kara opened the door and she looked shocked and a slight look of guilt flitted across her face when she saw it was Danny who knocked.

"Hey, Danny," Kara said with a small smile. "What are you doing here?" She asked as she stepped aside to let Danny in.

"You left the gummy bears at my house. I just wanted to bring them to you," Danny explained, holding the bag out to Kara.

"Oh, thanks," Kara said taking the bag and placing it on the coffee table. "And I'm sorry by the way," Kara said pushing her hair out of her face. "For leaving without saying goodbye. It just didn't sound like your mom wanted me there."

Danny looked around at Kara's place. It was nice. Very homey and humany which was a little surprising. She had a couch and a coffee table in the living room and a small dining room and there was a door that probably lead to Kara's bedroom. There was no kitchen, no TV, and no bathroom as far as Danny could tell. And the furniture all looked like it was taken straight out of a film from the 50's.

"Oh no it's okay. I actually should be the one to apologize. You were right before. I came to find you because I needed to talk." Kara just nodded and went to go sit on the couch. Danny followed her. "I'm sorry that I didn't talk and I'm sorry you felt like you had to talk since I wouldn't." Kara looked away from him. "Maybe I am depressed." Taking a deep breath Danny said, "Actually, no. I am depressed. I think I've known that, but I've just been in denial. I've always been pretty gloomy and pissy but I didn't want anyone know anything was seriously wrong, that it wasn't just normal teenager stuff. I felt like the minute I admitted that I was depressed, suddenly my parents or Sam and Tuck would know and then it'd become a whole thing. I'm sorry."

Kara looked up at him and gave him a soft smile. "You really didn't need to apologize."

"I know," Danny said slowly. "But I wanted to. You're like the only person that understands me and I don't want to push you away too." Danny looked away from Kara and turned his attention to the doors that were floating around outside. "It's kind of cool that you can still see the Ghost Zone from your apartment considering we went through one of the door portals to get here," Danny mused.

"Uh, yeah. I mean I never really though of it but I guess that it is pretty cool. I don't know how they do it."

"Considering the fact that ghosts actually exist and the abilities that some ghosts have, it's not really surprising that they found a way."

They stayed in silence for a few minutes, each lost in their own thoughts. Danny knew he should talk to Kara. He's been keeping things in for too long and after his conversation with Sam and after talking to Jazz, his brain felt close to melting down. He already felt like a small weight had been lifted off his shoulders just from admitting to her that he was depressed. Moving towards the window, Danny made sure he couldn't see Kara's face. He knew it would be easier to talk if he couldn't actually see her. And just for good measure, he squeezed his eyes shut. "Sam and I got into a fight today," Danny could barely keep his voice from shaking. He was so nervous and sad about the whole thing. It was almost physically painful to talk about.

"About what?" Kara asked gently. She stayed in her spot on the couch, but Danny could almost guarantee that she had turned to face him.

"It was my fault." Danny gripped the window sill. "I skipped school last week after we talked. You know, after I told Sam and Tucker that I didn't want to see them right now? I was so upset and I didn't know what to do with myself. My parents were easy to trick. I mean, all I had to do was go invisible and make sure my backpack was hidden if they came to check if I left. Which they only did twice. They leave for work not too long after I leave for school and they don't get back till after dinner. They're hardly ever home. They didn't even notice I had been skipping," Danny explained, his chest feeling heavy as thought about how lonely it was being home by himself all the time.

"Anyway, at school today, Sam confronted me about skipping last week. She said that she and Tucker were worried about me. Then she said that just because I saved the world doesn't mean that I can get away with skipping school. Something like I need to actually know things to become an astronaut, so I can't just bank on the teachers to give me an 'A'. Like, I know that but she was treating me like I was dumb or something. And then we were drawing a crowd and I told her that I would talk to her when I'm ready. But because of the incident at school people all over the world know that I'm fighting with my best friends, or with Sam at least. It's the latest gossip people have on me since Sam and I broke up. My sister called me around the time I got home from school asking me about it," Danny let out a dry laugh.

"You know what she offered to do?" Danny asked. He didn't even wait for an answer before he said, "She offered to come home. She was gonna back out of an internship just because I'm upset. Like, who does that? I don't deserve to have a sister like her. She's always done so much for me and I feel like I've hardly done anything for her except put her in danger and cause her trouble. It's not fair to her that she's stuck with me as a brother. Nobody deserves to have a brother like me. I'm so lousy at it." Danny felt the burn of tears behind his eyes. He was tempted to cry but he did his best to hold back his tears. If he started crying now, he wouldn't be able to stop and he wanted to keep talking. He needed to keep talking.

"After I got over the special treatment that people gave me for Phantom Planet, I just wanted things to go back to normal. The only problem is that I can go anywhere in the world and there'll be people who know me. I brought that onto myself. I don't regret saving the world, but I regret coming out to it. I could have flown away and not been on camera when I told my family that I was Danny Phantom. But I was caught in the moment, and in shock that things had actually worked and that my parents knew my secret and I changed back," Danny said starting to get angry the more he talked about that day. "It made sense at the time- in the moment." Danny shook his head at himself.

"God, how could I have been so stupid? I still can't believe I did that. I hadn't have done it then I wouldn't be in this mess. I'd be happy fighting ghosts as the famous world-saving Danny Phantom and just go home and go to school and go to the damn corner store without people freaking out over what I did. It's so fucking annoying. I don't want free stuff. I don't want to have an unlimited amount of excused absences. I don't want free food when I go out to eat. And I don't want to take a picture with any stupid tourist that comes to Amity Park because they want to run into the kid who saved the world. I'm just sick of it."

"I went from being a nobody to the most recognizable person in the world, at least according to the tabloids. And now," Danny wiped a tear away angrily. "Now I get no privacy. Now people always try to talk to me. Now people expect things from me that nobody ever expected of me, Danny Fenton, before they found out I was Phantom. They had actually said to do away with the police because the oh so glorious Danny Phantom will take care of everything, as if I don't have anything better to do with time than to not only catch troublesome ghosts but regular criminals too. If Tucker hadn't had been elected mayor, I'm sure I'd be the only thing standing in the way of crazy ghosts and criminals running rampant in this town," Danny huffed

"I just want everything to stop. All the voices telling me what I should do. All the pressure that those voices put on me. I just want it to go away. And the easiest way for everything to go away is if I go away. Forever. Permanently. Just, gone," Danny finished softly, his voice cracking filled with tears.

By this point he couldn't hold the tears back anymore. He just stood there facing the window letting the tears fall. He was surprised when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Looking up, he saw Kara. He stupidly was surprised to see her. He almost forgot that he was talking to her. She had unshed tears in her eyes and the most understanding and open expression on her face that it made Danny let out a choked sob. Without even thinking, he rushed forward into her arms and buried his head in her shoulder. His body shook hard as he clung to Kara's frame and cried. And Kara, in the most gentle and caring way just wrapped her arms around his back and held him close, not saying a thing. And Danny finally let out everything he'd been feeling for the past three years.


	4. Chapter 4

By the time Danny made it home, it was almost three o'clock in the morning. He had stayed at Kara's talking about anything and everything. On a more serious level, Kara had talked him through some techniques that could help with getting through bouts of depression. They also talked about mindless things such as what do muggle kids do when they go to Hogwarts and they have braces? Obviously there aren't any dentists in the wizarding world so do wizards get their teeth magicked straight? Is that a job that one needs to be trained in or is it a simple spell? And do those kids who attend Hogwarts who go in with braces have them removed in the Wizarding World? Many questions were made about the subject and they were seriously considering writing to J.K Rowling to get an answer.

Danny hadn't felt so light in such a long time. After he got everything off his chest and had a good long cry, a wave a peace came over him. It was the strangest thing. Did he still feel that some of the things he said were true? Of course. He didn't think his problems would be solved after one conversation. But just talking about everything made him feel so much better and Danny was glad he found someone he could talk to. It's strange, because he found talking to someone that he knew for all of two days easier than talking to his parents or his sister or his best friends. Even though Kara had known about him and admired him, she hadn't actually known him. They were strangers. And maybe that was why Danny felt like he could talk to her. Because she didn't know him personally and therefore didn't have many expectations of him. Because of that, he didn't care too much what she thought of him. He wasn't scared of her judgement because just as much as he was learning about her, she was learning of him. It made her easy to talk to- to be around. And that made Danny happy.

Danny took his time walking up stairs from the lab. He wanted to savor the feeling of happiness that had washed over him. Honestly, he was a little weary of going to bed. It was already pretty late and the sooner he went to bed the sooner he'd have to get up to go to school. He didn't want to school. Danny stupidly felt like the longer he stayed awake the more time he'd have till he had to go. It was stupid because whether he was awake or sleep between now and when he had to get up, it was the same amount of time in between. But Danny didn't let that stop him from pretending that wasn't true.

When Danny reached his room, he was curious as to why the door was slightly opened. Cautiously, he pushed the door open so he could see into the room. Danny was relieved to find his mom lying in his bed, fast asleep. Quietly he walked over to her and kneeled by the bed to gently shake her shoulder.

"Mom, what are you doing?" Danny whispered as soon as she opened her eyes.

"Oh, Danny!" His mom said sounding relieved. She sat up so fast that Danny hardly had time to process that he was being pulled into a hug. "We were so worried. Jazz called and she said she was extremely worried about you and that she thought that something was wrong- that we should check up on you. We came home as fast as we could," His mom said letting him out of her tight hug to look him in the eye. She kept a tight grip on his shoulders. "And you weren't here. All your homework was laid out on the table, but we couldn't find you anywhere. We tried calling your cell phone, but we found your phone on your bed," his mom said as she picked up his phone from under his pillow, handing it to him. He placed it on his bedside table. "And we called Sam and Tucker," his mom continued, wiping a tear from her eye. "Sam said the two of you had a fight at school and Tucker said he hadn't spoken to you since you went to go map those doors over a week ago. Nobody knew where you were," she said as more tears escaped her eyes. "We thought something had happened," and his mom's voice broke. She quickly scooped Danny back up into a hug and he rested his cheek on her shoulder, just letting her cry.

How could Danny have been so dumb as to think Jazz wouldn't have called his parents? It was just another thing to add to the ever-growing list of: how much stupider could Danny Fenton be?

"Mom, I'm so sorry," Danny said softly, wiping a tear from his mom's cheek. "I didn't mean to scare you guys. I just went to visit Kara. I didn't mean to stay in the Ghost Zone that long but it's hard to keep track of time there. The only reason I even knew what time it was when I got back was cause of the clock I keep in the lab. I'm so so sorry." His mom pulled back to look him in the eyes again.

"Who's Kara?" She sniffled.

"The girl that was here the other day. That's Kara. I was visiting her," Danny replied, searching his mom's face for a reaction.

After a few beats of silence his mom asked if she was his girlfriend. "I mean, it's really none of my business, but I can't help but wonder. She was asleep in your bed." Danny was about to tell his mom that she was wrong and that they were in fact not dating when a very serious look came over her face. "If the two of you are having sex," his mom said, and Danny reeled backwards.

"No, no. Mom you've got the wrong idea-" His mom cut him off.

"Now, Danny, I know it's embarrassing to talk to your parents about this kind of thing, but I need to know that you're being safe. I mean, I'm not quite sure if diseases can be transferred between ghosts and such- that field hasn't really been looked into. Or if female ghosts could even get pregnant. Then again the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady did have a ghost child…And now that I've mentioned it maybe we ought to do some research," His mom mumbled to herself. "Oh, I know!" His mom said, her voice suddenly bright and cheery, "How would you and Kara like to be our test subjects for how disease is spread, or not spread, through sexual intercourse between ghosts, or half-ghosts in your case. Also, if we could set up an interview with the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady to talk to them about how their daughter was conceived, it would be very helpful." His mom looked at him expectantly and Danny had to fight the urge to go and race back through the Fenton Portal and into the Ghost Zone.

"Mom, for the last time, Kara and I are not dating," Danny insisted, ignoring the last part of her request.

His mom just blinked at him. "Well, that doesn't mean that you can't be having sex," his mom said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Standing up, Danny gently pulled his mom off the bed. He started walking her towards the door as she tried to convince him of the importance of such research. More and more ghosts are taking up residence in the human world after all. "Love you, mom. Goodnight," Danny said as he gently shoved her out of his room and shut and locked the door.

"Okay, sweetie," his mom called out. "I love you too. But don't think this conversation is over. I will be talking to your father about this." Danny stood by his door till he was sure his mom was gone. He couldn't help the small smile that made its way across his face. As mortifying as that was, he loves to see his mom talk about her passion. Sure it had started out as ghost hunting, but it's involved into something else, granted, it was out of necessity. But her work has proven very useful to both the human and ghost community. And as much as Danny hated it admit it, his mom did have a point. There was no information about ghost's relationship to sex. And Danny had no idea what would happen if he got a girl pregnant- ghost or human. Would they have a half-ghost half-human child? Or would the child be completely ghost or human depending on the mother? And how did the Box Ghost and the Lunch Lady have a child? Danny paused then shook his head before he could think too much about it. He didn't wanna know.

Danny stripped himself of his clothes and lied down in bed. As soon as he was tucked warmly under the covers, the time really hit him. It was almost four in the morning. And damn it, he had school in a couple hours. Danny closed his eyes, hoping that for once, sleep would come easy to him. And for once, it actually did.

Soon enough it was Friday again. If you had told Danny on Monday that the week would have gone by so quickly, he would have laughed in your face. Ever since his conversation with Kara, however, he had been in a much better mood all around. He wasn't snapping at people or glaring at people who smiled at him. From Tuesday on, he smiled at everyone who looked his way, whether they were smiling at him or not. He started participating more in class, much to the shock of his teachers. And not only that, Danny even went and took pictures with some underclassmen who he remembered had asked him for pictures before. And the kicker was that they didn't approach him for the picture, Danny approached them. It was this out of character behavior that Sam eventually approached him for.

"Hey, Danny," Sam said. It was lunch time and Danny had just sat down and unwrapped his sandwich.

"Oh, uh, hey Sam." Sam looked surprised- probably because Danny had not ignored her, not that he blamed her. He hadn't exactly been the best friend to her the past couple of weeks. "Wanna sit?" Danny asked, and gestured to the bench across from him. She just nodded and took a seat.

Before Sam got the chance to say anything, Danny spoke. "I'm sorry I've been acting like such a jerk lately. I just haven't been in a good place mentally," Danny said, watching Sam play with her salad. "I know it's not really an excuse, but-"

"It's okay," Sam said, looking up from her salad. "Maybe I haven't been the most understanding." Danny just nodded. "I didn't really think about how all this attention impacted you. Everyone got on so well with their new roles after Phantom Planet happened and I just expected that you had too."

"To be fair, I thought I was doing well with everything too. Then everything I did, as Fenton or Phantom, slowly started to become a show. Everyone was watching what I was doing in a way that they hadn't before. It was okay at first, but eventually it became too much. People put too much responsibility on me. I would have been fine if I had to do that same things that I always had done, but once people found out, everyone came to me for every little thing. I felt like I couldn't say no to anyone because if I did then rumors would be spread about what a terrible person I am," Danny sighed. "I didn't want that."

"Thank goodness for Tuck, huh?" Sam said.

Danny chuckled. "Yeah, thank goodness for Tuck. He really saved my ass. If it wasn't for him telling people that I should only be called when there is a major ghost related emergency, then I'd probably be mowing someone's lawn right now."

"Yeah, he really did save your ass," Sam laughed.

Sobering up, she asked Danny how he's really been feeling this week. She pointed out his odd behavior and informed him that the kids he had taken pictures with had uploaded the pictures to Myspace and that they were circulating around the web. "Also, after that conversation in the lab, I realized that you were right. You, me, and Tucker only ever hang out together when we're working. And don't get me wrong, I'm proud of all the work we've done and I'm very passionate about it. But things have changed. I guess it happened so gradually that I didn't really notice till you pointed it out."

"I love the work we do too, and I'm sorry that I don't pitch in much with projects anymore, by the way. It started to feel like actual work and I hated that," Danny looked down at his food. "As for my behavior this week…let's just say that I found someone to talk to."

Sam raised her eyebrows at that. "Someone to talk to, huh? Do tell."

"It's not like that," Danny insisted. "Why do I have to keep telling people that? And how do you know I didn't mean a therapist or something?" Danny asked.

Sam smirked. "Cause you're blushing." Suddenly Danny could feel how red his face was and he felt his face get even redder when Sam started laughing.

"Shut up! It is so not like that," Danny yelled indignantly. "We've only met like three times."

"So why is this mystery person someone you can talk to?" Sam asked, finally taking a bite of her salad.

"I don't know." Danny shrugged and thought it over. "I guess she's just easy to talk to. We're both struggling with depression so in a way she kind of knows what I'm going through. We spent over twelve hours together yesterday. We talked, we laughed…we cried." Sam lower her fork with a pained look on her face. "We just connected. I don't know how to explain it," Danny said as he picked up his sandwich, trying to brush off the seriousness of the topic they had turned to.

"You've been depressed?" Sam asked, her eyebrows drawing up in concern. "Shit, Danny. I'm sorry I didn't notice before. I'm one of your best friends, I should be able to notice these things," Sam said, berating herself.

Danny shook his head. "It's okay, don't worry about. Honestly, I didn't even realize I was depressed till Kara pointed it out. Don't beat yourself up," Danny tried to reassure her.

"So," Same said.

"So?" Danny prompted.

"Tell me about Kara," Sam said, with a sly smile on her face. Danny rolled his eyes but went ahead and told Sam what she wanted to know. He ended up talking about her all the way till the bell rang. And he still had much more to tell.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note: Woohoo! Chapter 5! I got kinda stuck after writing chapter 4. I didn't know where I wanted to go with the story but then I remembered that I had mentioned the ghost prison and ghost rights for a reason. I wanted there to be a little more drive to the plot than just focusing on the fact that Kara and Danny are depressed. Don't get me wrong, it is something that will come up a lot in this story. Depression isn't something that just goes away, unfortunately. But there was only so much I could do with Kara and Danny talking before I felt like it would get kind of boring.**

 **Anyway, just out of curiosity, who's POV do you like reading more? Personally, I've found that I like writing Danny's POV more. I feel like I'm still figuring out exactly who Kara is but Danny is an established character and that makes him easier to write. Idk. Would you guys like it if I kept throwing Kara's POV in there would would you guys like me to keep the remainder of the story in Danny's? Let me know!**

 **I do not own Danny Phantom just my oc and the plot. Thanks for reading! Enjoy :)**

"It was just great! It really feels good to be on good terms with Sam again." Danny was telling Kara how he and Sam talked at lunch on Friday. It was now Tuesday evening and Kara and Danny were sitting on Danny's bed. Danny noticed that after their long conversation the other day, Kara wasn't as hesitant around him as she had been. For example, now she'll go and sit on his bed with him prompting her. For some reason that made Danny very happy.

"That's great!" Kara exclaimed. "I'm really happy for you." Danny smiled.

"Me too." Since the conversation was dying down, Danny decided to change the subject. To something that had been on his mind for the past couple days. You know how you hate living in the Ghost Zone at that weird apartment with no bathroom?" Danny asked.

Kara smiled. "Yes."

"I remembered the other day that there's an apartment complex not too far from here. They built it close to my house so that I could keep an eye on the ghosts and stuff. It's a ghost only apartment. It was specifically made so that ghosts can live in the human world. You'd legally be allowed to live here and become a citizen of Amity Park, if you wanted to anyway. Not everyone that lives there is a citizen. There's still some gray areas that we're trying to figure out," Danny enthusiastically told Kara. Kara, however, didn't seem as enthused as Danny hoped she would be. "But it's a really nice place and I think you'll like it!" Danny maybe was telling her this for selfish reasons. He wanted her to be on this side of things. Danny had always hated going into the Ghost Zone and if Kara moved into the human world, then he wouldn't have to keep going to the Ghost Zone to see her. Plus Kara had said she wanted to live in the human world again. It was a win-win.

"Don't you wanna live in the human world again?" Danny asked, confused. It had only been about a month that Kara'd been living in the Ghost Zone but she said it was gloomy and weird. She missed the sun and the clouds and people who weren't from another dimension or dead. Danny thought she'd be happy to hear about this place.

Kara hesitated before answering. "It's complicated."

Danny's face scrunched up in confusion. "How? You said you missed the human world and this is your chance to be apart of it again. How is that complicated?"

Kara sighed. "But I wouldn't really be apart of it, would I? I'd just be a ghost living in that ghost only apartment complex in a world of people who are living. Remember that girl at the convenience store when we went to buy the gummy bears?" Danny nodded. "She was talking about ghost rights. People are obviously weary of ghosts actually living among them. Before, the people in this town knew they had you to protect them from ghosts. They basically see all other ghosts besides you as evil or as troublemakers. It's why I've hardly come back here. I don't want to be caught on the wrong side of things." Danny immediately felt bad.

"I didn't mean for this to upset you…I thought you'd be happy. I'm sorry," Danny apologized. He really hadn't meant for Kara to get upset. He just though it would be cool for Kara to live down the street from him. And maybe she'd be interested in helping with the ghost rights movement. It's something Danny hadn't been excited about in a long time but now that he was actually friends with someone who was impacted directly by it, his excitement for the cause seemed to flare up. He just assumed Kara would be as excited as he was. Danny voiced those thoughts.

"Don't get me wrong, I really do appreciate you thinking about me. You really don't know how much it means that you thought of me," Kara sounded sincere, but Danny knew she was just trying to make him feel better. It wasn't really working. "And you're actually right. I do miss living here. I mean, I wasn't from Amity Park, I grew up in Florida which is way far away from here. But the human world is the human world. I'll take what I can get 'cause I can't go back home." Kara becamee quite pensive.

"I don't know how I'd confront my family- if I'd even want to. I've been trying to make a new life in the Ghost Zone, but it's been hard…you know what? Let's go take a look at that apartment complex. Might as well. It doesn't mean I actually have to stay there, right? We're just looking," Kara said. And Danny beamed.

"Right!" Danny agreed as he all but leaped off the bed. He grabbed his jacket and slung it over his shoulder. "Let's go!" Danny said grabbing Kara's arm and pulling her towards the door. Kara just laughed and went along with him. When they made it to the bottom of the stairs, Danny stopped in his tracks and Kara slammed into him. His parents were sitting at the kitchen table hunched over paperwork and amodel of some sort. At six o'clock in the evening. On a weekday. This never happened.

"Mom? Dad?" Danny asked, shocked.

His parents looked up at him and they both gave him a wide smile. "Danny, my boy. There you are!" His dad said as he got up from his chair and pulled Danny into a bone crushing hug. "Your mother and I thought we'd stop home for dinner. We rarely ever have dinner as a family anymore." Danny was let go from the suffocating hug and Danny saw that his mother was now standing next to his dad, looking at Kara with curiosity. Before his mom could say anything, Danny jumped in.

"Mom, Dad, this is Kara." Kara waved at them.

"Hello," Kara said meekly, staying behind Danny.

"You're a ghost," Danny's dad said. Danny had to resist the urge to face palm.

"Yes dad, she's a ghost. And guess what? So am I. Now if you'll excuse us," Danny said reaching behind him to grab Kara's arm. "We're going out." Danny tried unsuccessfully to pass by his parents. They both stood in front them with their arms crossed and a determined look on their faces. Danny wanted run away when he saw his mom look back to Kara.

"Kara, sweetie, it's so nice to finally meet you. I'm Maddie," She said gesturing to herself. "And this is my husband Jack. We'd love it if you were to stay for dinner." Kara looked to Danny for help and he just shrugged, helplessly. With the tone his mom was using, he knew that they didn't really have much of a choice.

"I haven't eaten at all since I've become a ghost. I don't think ghosts eat, but I appreciate the offer." Kara looked at Danny from the side. "And I hate to break up your plans, but Danny was going to show me the ghost only apartment complex down the street. I was thinking of moving there," Kara said, trying to get her and Danny out of being roped into dinner. Danny appreciated it, but he knew they were screwed.

"Well I guess we'll all find out together if ghosts can eat, won't we? And you're talking about the Safe Haven. As it just so happens, Jack and I designed the place. We'd be happy to take you there tomorrow and give you the full tour. But for now, we should get ready to eat. Pizza will be here soon. Now, come sit down you two, we've got some questions." Danny just looked at Kara with a resigned look. He knew they wouldn't get out of this. Danny and Kara both hesitantly took a seat across from where Danny's parents had been sitting. His parents were putting the papers away and Danny got a good look at the model that was on the table.

"Is that the ghost prison?" Danny asked pointing to the scale model. His mom whipped around fast to pick it up.

"Yes, dear it is." She quickly placed the model on top of the fridge.

Danny felt Kara lightly tap his arm. "Ghost prison?" She asked, whispering softly. Before Danny could respond, his parents were sitting in the chairs across from them.

"So, kids," Danny's dad said. "Maddie tells me the two of you are sleeping together," His dad looked at them expectantly. Danny blushed and shrunk back in his chair. His dad was never one for subtlety. Danny didn't even want to see the look on Kara's face.

"No, dad. We're not." Danny glared at his mom who just smiled at him. This was her doing.

"Well, I, for one, don't believe you. So, here," Danny was mortified when his mom pulled a box of condoms out of no where and placed them in front of him. Danny didn't think it was possible, but he managed to shrink down even further in his chair. "We still don't know exactly how sex works between humans, or half humans, and ghosts." Then she laughed. "Well of course we know, but we don't know what the consequences would be so it's better to be on the safe side.

"We are not having sex!" Danny said, outraged. "Why can't you just take my word and leave it at that?" His embarrassment was quickly turning into anger. "Don't you trust me to tell the truth?"

His parents looked at each other. "The thing is, Danny, we were once your age," His dad said. "We know how hormones can get. One minute you're studying innocently for an engineering test and the next you're pressed up against a desk tearing each other's clothes off." Danny had to repress a shudder when his parents gave smirked at each other.

"Okay, ew. I understand why you're concerned but really, we have no use for these," Danny insisted, pushing the box back over to his parents. "We're just friends, isn't that right Kara?" Danny finally looked over to find Kara blushing. She looked at Danny with wide eyes and she looked extremely uncomfortable about the whole situation.

"Uh, right!" Kara said too fast. "Friends. Just friends. No sex here." Kara looked down at her lap and Danny wasn't surprised when his dad pushed the box back over to him.

"We just want the two of you to be safe and make good choices," Danny's mom said. There was an awkward silence after that. It only lasted about two minutes but it felt like a hundred years. The silence was broken by the doorbell.

Danny practically jumped out of seat and with a hurried "I'll get it!" he was rushing to the front door.

He was stupid to think that his mom would drop their conversation from the other day. He wrongfully believed that just because he had gone through a few days without his parents questioning him that his mom had not talked to his dad about it or they had decided to drop the matter altogether. How dumb could Danny be?

How did his parents even know Kara was there? Had they been spying on him? Or were they planning on cornering him when he was by himself and it was just a coincidence that Kara was with him? All these questions ran through his head as he opened the door. Danny was surprised to see Paulina's best friend, Star, on the other side of the door.

"Oh, hey Star," Danny greeted.

Star smiled. "Hey Danny. Here's your pizza," she said handing him two large boxes. "And here's the soda," Star said handing him a bottle of soda.

"Thanks," Danny said, taking the bottle from Star. Not wanting to go back inside and face his parents, Danny decided to start up a conversation. "So, how have you been? I haven't seen you at school."

Star nodded. "I've been good. I'm part time over at the college. I only go to the high school in the morning," she explained.

"Oh, that's cool."

"Yeah. I wanna get my A.A. before going to cosmetology school. I want to be a hair dresser. But if I have my A.A. before-hand, then I can go back to college once I get my certificate." Danny nodded, slightly impressed and, he was surprised to note, mildly sad.

"Seems like you have everything figured out," Danny tried to sound supportive, but thinking about life after college always upset him. It seemed like everyone had their lives plans out except for him. Danny didn't believe he'd actually become and astronaut, but he didn't know what else to do.

Star beamed at him. "Yeah, I do. I'm really happy with the direction things are going. Anyway, I have to run. I have other deliveries. I'll see you around, Danny."

Star started walking back to her car when Danny realized that he hadn't paid her for the pizza. "Wait," Danny called out. "I didn't pay. How much do I owe you?" Danny asked, quickly setting the pizza and soda inside and running back out with his wallet in hand.

Star smiled softly at him. "It's on the house," Star went to turn around, but Danny stopped her. He hated all this free stuff.

"At least let me give you a tip," Danny said as he pulled out a $20 bill from his wallet.

Star shook her head. "That's too much money. The tip's only supposed to be like three dollars or something. Plus, we're not supposed to take money from you."

"I insist," Danny said, suddenly desperate. "Take it." Danny grabbed her hand a placed the $20 in it. "For cosmetology school. Please. I won't tell if you won't." Danny kept hold of her hand as Start contemplated what she should do. Danny had to stop himself from doing a victory dance when Star nodded and pulled her hand away clutching the twenty dollars.

"Thanks, Danny." He nodded in return. Danny stayed outside until he had watched Star had disappeared down the street.

Once she was out of sight, Danny quickly realized that he had left Kara alone with his parents. Shit. Danny turned around and booked it back inside. He hoped they weren't giving Kara too much trouble.


End file.
